This is the first of a series of ongoing posts chronicling the crazy ideas I come up with when I should be working or otherwise being a productive member of society.

Today’s edition: What I would do if I started a band. It’s all about branding and getting one’s name out there, especially in the viral, bottom-up Internet distribution era. And here’s a can’t-miss solution to that particular problem:

Band Name: The Hot New Talent
Album Title: The Brilliant Debut Album
First Track: The Smash Hit Single

Thus whenever someone encounters my song on iTunes or hears about it on the radio, they’ll hear/read/encounter this: “It’s The Smash Hit Single off The Brilliant Debut Album by The Hot New Talent.” The novelty factor alone will get people to give the music a listen.

My hypothetical band would still need to have, you know, talent (not all that much, really, but a bit), and then I’d be on way to rock ‘n roll supremacy. Or at least a “Where Are They Now” segment on VH1 10 years from now. I’ll take whatever I can get.

Starting on Monday I’ve begun an exercise and diet regimen I call “The Better Man Plan.” The ultimate goal is to be back to my college-age level of fitness (less than 10 percent body fat and a 32″ waist) by the end of the year.

Which I’m sure absolutely no one in the world aside from me cares about, but I’m sharing so that you can all hold me to it and publicly mock me if I fail to reach my ambitious but attainable goal.

I thank you all in advance for your aid in this fitness endeavor. And I do plan on posting some before and after photos at the end of all this, so I’d better be in darn good shape by then or else I’ll be in some serious trouble…

I give you D-War, the movie that Reign of Fire should have been…

So I’m actually going to start updating this thing now. I promise. For real this time. Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a sai blade in my eye…

The current goal is to blog at least three times a week and hopefully more like five.

Prepare for Awesomeness!

Hi Mr. Elder,

I am _________. I am 7 1/2  years old.

I met you at the Boy Scouts meeting at St. Tars school with Chris Garlington. We all made comics and My mom bought me both of your books there.

I really like your books. They’re very cool.

You’re  a very good author.

I like in volume 2 where you say: Brock: Still stupid. 

 And I like the part where Brock says “I love the smell of B.O. in the morning”

I want to be a author like you now.

When is Volume 3 coming out??? I can’t wait.

That’s the magic number for being considered cancer free — and I just reached it.

Just wanted to share.

Grindhouse was fun. I certainly don’t regret the money spent on my ticket because I laughed out loud about every 20 seconds while watching Planet Terror, found Death Proof to be a flawed yet fascinating cinematic experience and the fake trailers were amazing. I’m not surprised it tanked at the box office, however. The audience for this kind of outre genre material really isn’t that large. There’s a reason the old grindhouse flicks were made on shoestring budgets and shown in third-class theaters — your typical moviegoer simply had no interest in watching them.

Tarantino and Rodriguez have been doing movies in the grindhouse vein for pretty much their entire careers, but the reason those films were so successfully commercially and critically compared to Grindhouse was that they transcended their roots. I think El Mariachi was the last really good movie Rodriguez made, but even his lesser works still have something fresh. Planet Terror is nothing more than a 70s zombie movie with a big budget. And that’s fine, but again there are reasons that 70s zombie flicks were made on the cheap.

And Death Proof — oh boy what a failure of cinematic imagination that movie is. Actually, to call it a “movie” seems wrong to me since it isn’t a coherent narrative in any way. It’s simply two vignettes connected only by the presence of a character who acts woefully out of character in one vignette compared to the other. It’s still well shot and it’s certainly entertaining — and the car stunts are A+ amazing –  but it really fails on almost every level to cohere as an actual movie. If it made Kurt Russell’s Stuntman Mike the star and followed him from one vignette to another while giving the audience a peak inside his disturbed psyche, that would have been a movie. If the first group of girls had been connected to the second in some or another, that would have been a movie. If one of the girls from group 1 had survived and gone after Russell for revenge — now that would have REALLY been a movie. Alas, none of the above…
Still, the trailers were so excellent that I can’t really complain. I’d pay good money to see Machete, that’s for sure.

The Venture Bros. is one of the rare geek-culture delicacies I have yet to consume. The premise, a spoof of Johnny Quest made by one of the masterminds behind The Tick, was pretty much a can’t-miss proposition. But for whatever reason, I just never tuned in.

But after reading this interview by my friend Dave Weigel over at Reason, I think I’ll be picking up that Season One DVD set tomorrow…

Courtesy of Collegehumor.com

And a sad thing is… I’d totally go see pretty much all of them.

…and yet totally awesome. Some guy on LiveJournal tries to create segregated fictional universes based on Sienfeld and the various television shows it’s crossed over with. It’s quite possibly the nerdiest thing I’ve ever seen, and believe me, that’s saying a lot.

Some sample text:

Continuity 1: Our continuity. This includes me and everyone reading this, C1 Larry David, C1 Jerry Seinfeld, etc. Here it is acknowledged that C2, C3, and C4 are entirely based in fiction.

Continuity 2: The continuity of Curb Your Enthusiasm. In this continuity, there exists a C2 Larry David, C2 Ted Danson, C2 David Schwimmer, et cetera. Additionally, it also includes figures such as Cheryl, C2 Larry’s fictional wife, and Jeff Greene, C2 Larry’s fictional manager, neither of which appear outside of Continuity 2. I would also argue that the Wanda that appears in Continuity 2 is not supposed to be the same as C1 Wanda Sykes, but a totally different person with the same name and a similar comedic style. For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to her as C2 Wanda, but this is not to make a distinction between the two as there is none to be made. Continuity 2 is entirely fictional in C1.

Continuity 3: The continuity of Seinfeld. This includes C3 Jerry Seinfeld, C3 Corbin Bernsen, C3 George Steinbrenner, et cetera. Continuity 3 is entirely fictional in C1 and C2.

Continuity 4: The continuity of Mad About You, Make Room For Daddy, Dick Van Dyke, Lucy Desi Comedy Hour, I Love Lucy, C4 George Reeve (with super powers), and, purely speculatively, C4 Clark Kent (C4 Superman). Though a C4 Kramer exists, he is not the same as C3 Kramer, and basically totally unrelated to the Kenny Kramer of C1, name aside. C4 George Reeve may have been murdered by Superman in C4, despite C1 George Reeve committing suicide. Continuity 4 is entirely fictional in Continuity 1, 2, and 3.